New York Times reports today’s Internet is “flatter” and “more densely connected” than ever before.

The newspaper notes there are only 30 large companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft and YouTube that account for a disproportionate 30% of all Internet traffic.

Consolidation is not the only trend revealed by the new findings. There’s also an abrupt decline in peer-to-peer traffic, which only two years prior peaked at 40% of all traffic worldwide. Today, peer-to-peer traffic has dropped down to 18%.

Why the change? NY Times explains: “For the most part, the file-sharing that took place on networks like Limewire and Napster back in the late 90s and early 2000s, has now been largely replaced by streaming video thanks to sites like YouTube, Hulu, and Netflix.

“Given easier and less technical ways of accessing media, consumers have begun to shift away from the headache of P2P to these new and often free or ad-supported sites.”